FAQ: Why is this labeled as an E/B story when it's obviously not an E/B story.

Answer: The long and short of it is this-In my seventeen years of experience with fandoms and fanfiction, that space has always been where people look to find the romantic pairing. That's just the way fanfiction works. E/B ARE the romantic pairing of this fic. They're the ones you got to see get together, whose romance was part of the larger narrative. Additionally, I was hoping early on in the fic that labeling this as an E/B pairing would assure you, the reader, that there wasn't going to be a love triangle. Jasper was never planning on trying to get Bella back.

However, this IS an E/J story. I just couldn't label it that way because if I had put E/J up there, you would have thought this was a slash story. This isn't a romance story-it isn't labeled as such. This is a story about two brothers. It always has been Edward and Jasper's story. That's why it alternates from Edward and Jasper's PoV.

So there's your explanation. Pairings and categories aren't a science, they're an opinion. In my opinion, this was the best way to label it.

~One Year Later~

Edward eased his front door open, trying not to draw attention to himself. He didn't want to distract his daughter from her music lesson. It was likely parental bias, but he couldn't help thinking Kaylee had to be the most talented five-year-old on the planet. He stepped into the front room where he could listen without being seen.

Jacob was already there in the recliner, his feet propped up and his head cocked as he listened. Malcolm was sprawled across his broad chest, fast asleep. His sister's musical genius meant little to his one-year-old world.

Jake nodded at Edward in greeting. "She sounds great."

"She does," Edward agreed.

"Good, Kaylee," Jasper's voice praised as Kaylee's song drew to an end. "That's great. Remember to hold your fingers higher at the bridge. Don't get lazy there."

"You want me to do it again, Uncle Jay?"

"No. You got that one. How about you see if you can follow me? Use your ears, not your eyes." He plucked out a few notes on his own guitar. Kaylee's more tinny sounding guitar answered after a few moments.

Edward couldn't help himself. He peered carefully around the corner into the living room. Kaylee sat on the couch and Jasper sat in the chair across from her. Kaylee's expression was hilarious. Her eyebrows were knitted in concentration, and her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth.

His daughter was adorable, and he was endlessly smitten with her.

Her eyes caught him when he shifted to lean against the wall, and she brightened. "Daddy!"

"Hey, sugar. You're getting so good with that guitar."

"Uncle Jay says I'm a rockstar."

"He's a smart man sometimes."

A smile tugged at Jasper's lips. He looked at Edward briefly before he turned his attention back to Kaylee. "Do you think you're ready to play the song you learned for your daddy?"

Edward raised an eyebrow. "You're going to play me something, sugar?"

She screwed her lips up at one corner of her mouth. "I dunno. I want it to be perfect."

"Perfect is an awfully tall order for such a short person," Jasper said, winking at her. "But I'll tell you what. You're good, and I bet you'll make it amazing even if it's not perfect. And I bet it would make your daddy's day."

Edward nodded when Kaylee looked at him for confirmation. "Try it, little bit. You never know what you can do until you try."

She shrugged. "Okay."

Again there was that look Edward adored, with her tongue sticking out as she adjusted her hold on the guitar. When she began to play, Edward recognized the song immediately, and he looked to his brother. There was a small, secretive smile playing at Jasper's lips, but he didn't look up. He kept his eyes on Kaylee, mimicking the keystrokes as she played.

"That was fantastic, Kaylee," Edward said when the song drew to a close. He meant it, too. She and Jasper must have been practicing this one for a while.

She grinned hugely at him and put her guitar down so he could sweep her up into a hug complete with a wet smack of a daddy smooch. "You really liked it, Daddy?"

"I really, really did. Why don't you see what Jake thought, hmm?"

Kaylee squirmed down from his hold, eager to hear someone else singing her praises. When she was gone, Edward turned to his brother. "Metallica? Really? You taught her Metallica?"

Jasper's grin was lopsided. "Of course I taught her Metallica. Wasn't it one of the first things I taught you?"

"I don't remember," Edward said after a moment. "You must have, of course, but I feel like I always just knew that song."

"Ha. No. You heard me playing on my guitar and you begged me to teach you. Then, when I tried, you got frustrated and quit about a thousand times. Every time, you would come and beg me all over again. Then when you finally got it, you wouldn't stop playing it." He shook his head. "Emmett said he was going to kill me."

"Sounds like Kaylee is a much better student."

"She doesn't get frustrated as easily."

A silence fell over them then that wasn't completely comfortable. Jasper's easy smile faded, and he sighed, tapping his fingers on his leg. "Listen, Edward. I need to talk to you and Bella."

Edward's stomach flipped. His throat was too tight to speak for a time. It was a ridiculous reaction, but he couldn't help but feel something was coming he wasn't going to like. He nodded his head in a quick jerk. "Okay. Dinner tonight then?"

"That'd be great."

"Are you bringing Alice?"

"If that's okay."

"Yeah, of course."

Some hours later, the four of them were out for the evening.

Typically, things were easy between the foursome. Edward and Bella had both come to adore Alice. Shortly after she moved to Seattle, Jasper had moved out of Carlisle and Esme's home and into the apartment with her. From there, he'd been able to get a better handle on his depression and really started to deal with the issues that had driven him to drugs in the first place. These days, Jasper was happy, and though they still had their issues from time to time, Edward was glad his brother was finding peace.

Today, though, Alice was in full on protective mode. Edward could see the way she held Jasper's hand under the table, and it did nothing to ease his anxiety. He took Bella's hand similarly and waited for whatever storm was about to hit.

Finally, finally, Jasper blew out a sharp breath. He turned to Alice, and something wordless passed between them. She reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a book. It wasn't professionally done-that much was obvious. Edward looked up at Jasper, more curious than anxious now. He cast a glance at Bella who looked similarly bewildered.

"Open it," Jasper said.

Edward found his hand trembled slightly as he reached out to pull the book toward him. He flipped it open, and a tightness rose in his throat as he realized what it was.

It was a book of Jasper's snapshots, the pictures he'd taken the three years he was separated from the family. The images themselves were glossy, the colors bright where he'd taken the shots in color and stark when they were black and white. But what drew Edward's attention were the words that accompanied each shot. He skimmed and got the gist quickly. They were the thousand words that explained the picture-Jasper's mindset, his struggle, his lonely journey.

"You wrote it," Edward said.

Even though it had been over a year since Edward had given the photos back, he hadn't lost the need and curiosity to understand what his brother had been through. There was still that part of him who couldn't reconcile how it was possible for his brother to have done this to himself. He saw the way Jasper loved his family. He saw the raw hurt in his eyes when he watched Kaylee sometimes. To that day, Edward couldn't fathom what had kept Jasper away from the family he so desperately wanted to be a part of.

"This one is for you, but…"

Edward looked up at Jasper. "But?"

"I don't know if you remember. When you gave these back, you said maybe I could publish them. Publish this." Jasper took a deep breath. "I think it could be a good idea."

"Publish this?" Bella asked, thumbing through the pages. "I didn't know you told him that, Edward. That's a great idea. It would be interesting to a lot of people."

"Yeah. I'd like to try, but the thing about this is it's incomplete," Jasper said.

"What do you mean?" Edward asked.

He looked back and forth between them. Beside him, Alice touched his shoulder in an encouraging gesture. He seemed to draw strength from her support. "I think you're right, Bella. I think this would be very interesting to a lot of people, but what's more important to me is that I think maybe it could help people. People like me, I mean. But I think it would only help if there was some closure. This." He put his hand over the book. "This is all the awful things. It was hard for me to put together. It was hard to remember those days because my life was only awfulness or oblivion. No in between. It's such a hopeless existence.

"What helped me more than anything was remembering how this story ends. I'm lucky." He looked at them and then he looked over at Alice. He brought their joined hands up on top of the table. "I know how lucky I am.

"I guess what I'm getting at is I'd like for this book to be able to help people, but I don't think it will unless I finish the story. Three years ago, when I woke up in the hospital, I had no hope. I think that's a reality for a lot of addicts-that there's no hope. I think it gets reinforced day after day even if they try to help themselves. It's damn near impossible to overcome the cravings. It hurts to even try to function without it, and that's just the tip of the iceberg." He looked up, his far-off glance focusing again as he looked to Edward and Bella in turn with shame in his eyes. "You get to the point where what you want more than anything is to be a good son again, a good brother, a good person, but you've hurt everyone around you too badly. They're so angry and distrustful, it feels like there's no hope of coming back. There's no hope of forgiveness. There's no hope you can ever get to be part of anything good again. And if there's no hope, what's the point of the struggling? What's the point of not giving in to the cravings?"

Edward's lips tugged downward, and he wondered, not for the first time, if, in his rage, he'd ever sent Jasper into a spiral he almost didn't pull out of.

"This is the rest of the story," Jasper said, putting another section on the table. "This is what's in the light at the end of the tunnel. This is what I wish I knew when I was gone-that there's hope."

The second part wasn't as thick as the first. They were more snapshots, of course. The earlier ones weren't as good a quality-they were cell phone pictures, Edward realized-and yet they still captured something more than a typical photo. There was Esme, her eyes wary and tired but her smile genuine as she looked back at her long lost son. There was Emmett caught mid-conversation at what looked like a basketball game, picking up his relationship with his brother where they left off. There was a photo that was a mirror image of the one Esme had up in her office of her and Carlisle cradling a newborn Edward, staring at him in wonder. In this picture, it was Edward, Bella, and baby Malcolm.

There were photos of the entire family, the kids, even Jacob.

And Kaylee. Of course there were pictures of Kaylee.

It hit Edward then exactly why Jasper was so nervous. He could tell that Bella had caught on because she gripped her fingers in a fantastically tight hold.

"If you want me to scrap the whole idea, I will," Jasper said quickly. "It's up to you. It's completely up to you. It could all be a non-issue. There's nothing saying it would sell at all. But if it did… "He swallowed hard and shook his head. "I would just hate if it was someone else who told Kaylee the truth about me."

~0~

When Edward got home that night, he went straight to Kaylee's room. He sat at her window seat, watching her sleep, trying to get a grip on the fierce protective instinct that had been rekindled by Jasper's request.

Mine, the feral voice growled in his head.

"Edward," Bella whispered. He hadn't heard her come into the room, but her light touch to his arm did wonders to soothe him.

He let her pull him to his feet and down the hall to their room. Once there, he sat against the headboard and she settled onto his laps, her arm around his neck, needing the comfort and closeness as much as Edward did. They anchored each other. They always had.

"Either way, we always knew we had to tell her," Bella said after an age. "We agreed when she was a baby, remember?"

"When she's old enough to understand the concept but young enough she won't be angry we kept it from her," Edward echoed their discussion from years before.

She stroked the side of his face and then kissed the tip of his nose. She reached past him and took Jasper's book off the nightstand. "Look at this. Really look."

He kept his eyes on hers stubbornly, but she waited him out. She stroked his neck, pressing little kisses along his cheek. After a minute, he sighed and looked down to the book she had open on her lap.

Bella tapped her finger on one of the pictures. She flipped the page and pointed to another. "You see?"

Edward did.

Jasper had always been able to capture the truth. What he saw in those pictures was a daddy so in love with his daughter. And Kaylee… the way she was looking back at him. He was the center of her world, and she adored him. She loved him more than she loved her favorite stuffed animal, and to a five-year-old, that was saying a lot.

His brother had snapped a picture in those particular moments for a reason. If it had been a second later, Kaylee might have been looking away or Edward might have been blowing a raspberry against her neck. But he hadn't captured the cute moments or the photogenic moments. He'd captured their father-daughter bond, and he'd done it on purpose.

"Baby, she's yours." Bella rested her head on his shoulder and brushed her lips against his neck. "You know it. She knows it. Jasper knows it."

Edward was quiet for a long time. It was true, he knew, but that didn't take away his fervent wish that this conversation never had to happen.

He took a deep breath, let it out, and let it go. He let Bella's touch comfort him, and he began to return her kisses. He rubbed his hands up and down her back and then pressed her down on the bed. He lifted her nightgown and pulled down her panties and reminded himself how very, very lucky he was.

~0~

They showed Kaylee one of the pictures Jasper took of Bella when she was pregnant with her. "You remember when Mal was growing in my tummy?" Bella asked.

"Uh huh. You walked like this." Kaylee teetered back and forth in an imitation of a waddle, and she giggled.

Edward couldn't help his smile, and Bella ruffled her hair. "That's right. You remember when I told you that you lived in my tummy too before you were born?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it takes two people to make a baby."

"A mommy and a daddy. I know. Tia from my class told me."

Edward's cheek twitched and he exchanged a glance of Bella. He mentally added finding out what Tia had told their daughter about how babies were made to the list of conversations to have soon.

But first thing was first. "That's not quite true," he said. "It takes a man and a woman to make a baby, but that man and woman aren't always a mommy and a daddy. See, not everyone can be a mommy or daddy. It doesn't mean they're bad people; it just means they weren't ready for a baby."

Kaylee looked at them and kicked her feet a little listlessly. It was obvious she had no idea why her parents were talking about this.

Beside him, Bella took a deep breath and put down another picture. Despite himself, Edward's temper flared.

The photo was innocent enough. Bella was obviously pregnant. Jasper had his arm loose around her waist. "The thing is, baby bird, your Uncle Jay is the man who helped me make you."

Edward squeezed her hand because that had been hard for him to hear, but it must have been awkward as hell for Bella to say.

The bored look had faded from Kaylee's face. She was chewing on her bottom lip, looking at the photograph.

Edward moved off the chair he was sitting in to sit on the other side of Kaylee on the couch. She leaned into him but otherwise didn't say much. Edward squeezed her tightly. "You know we all love you so much, Kaylee. That's never going to change."

She turned and clambered up on his lap, locking her arms around his neck and ducking her head against his shoulder. Bella scooted over, putting an arm around both of them and rubbing Kaylee's back.

"Sugar, are you okay?" Edward asked, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head.

"Yes."

"Do you have any questions?"

She shook her head vehemently against his shoulder.

"That's fine. You can ask us anything any time, okay?"

"Okay."

~0~

Edward and Bella had decided to keep things as normal as ever after their conversation. To that end, Jasper came over as usual to give Kaylee a guitar lesson.

He was so nervous and anxious, Edward almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He might have felt sorrier except he was nervous too.

At first, Kaylee didn't react to her uncle any differently. She sat across from him, following his instructions as usual. If she noticed how Jasper stumbled over his words or how his voice almost ran out from time to time, she didn't call attention to it.

Then, apropos of nothing, she looked at Jasper over her guitar. "Hey, Uncle Jay?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Mommy and Daddy said you helped make me. When I was a baby and lived in Mommy's tummy."

Edward saw how Jasper jolted and that his grip on his guitar was so tight his knuckles went white. He swallowed several times. "Yeah, that's right."

"Did you help make Vera and Henry?"

"What? Oh. No. Honey, no."

"But you're their Uncle Jay too."

Edward was about to step in with answers of his own when Jasper spoke quietly."Uncle is just a word that means we're family, and I love you. It means your Daddy and your Uncle Em and I are brothers."

She nodded. "Mommy and Daddy said you couldn't be a daddy."

"No." Jasper swallowed several times, his fingers twisting the tuning pegs of his guitar at random. "You have to be really awesome to be someone's daddy."

"My daddy is awesome."

"You're right. He is."

"So if you're my Uncle Jay and you helped make me, I guess we're just a little bit special, huh?"

"Yeah, Kaylee." Jasper's voice was thin, but he managed to keep it steady.

"That's cool. Can we learn a new song soon? I don't really like this one."

"Um. Yeah. Yeah, of course." Jasper looked down at his guitar again as though he was having trouble gathering his thoughts. "You know what, Kaylee-girl? I'm sorry. I think we should try again tomorrow. I can have a new song ready for you by then."

"But-" Kaylee started to argue, but Edward stepped in.

"Hey, sugar. You think you can do me a favor? I think Mal woke up from his nap. You know you can always make him smile when he's grumpy. Why don't you go help Jake?"

Kaylee seemed indecisive for a moment, but then she put her guitar down. "Okay."

While he'd been speaking to Kaylee, Jasper had slipped out the door, but Edward found him easily enough. He was sitting on the stoop with his head in his hands, as winded as though he'd just run a sprint.

Edward didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. He simply sat down next to Jasper on the stoop and waited.

After an age, Jasper's breathing slowed. He straightened up a bit and dug a fist into his eyes. "Fuck," he said under his breath. "God, I can't tell if that was worse or better than I imagined."

"Yeah. I'm with you on that one."

Jasper rubbed at the center of his chest as though trying to soothe an ache there.

"Are you going to be okay?" Edward asked knowing full well that he would get to go back inside and hug the hell out of his daughter and Jasper would, as usual, have to live with what he'd lost.

His brother laughed wryly. "You're a much better man than I am, you know that? In every way. That you can even care about how I feel…" He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "You know, Edward? In case I never told you, if I had to fuck it all up, I'm glad it was you."

"I'm not going to lie to you. I'm glad it was me too." He bumped Jasper's shoulder with his. "In case I've never told you, I think you're a better man than you give yourself credit for."

He paused, searching for the right words. "You know, I can't be sorry that they're mine, but I am sorry you're hurting." He huffed out a breath. "And I'm glad you're my brother. Even if it means we have to go through days like this a few more times, I'm glad we're brothers."

Jasper sat up straight, some of the defeat lessening from his posture. "Yeah. I'm glad too."

A/N: Many thanks to barburella and jessypt for all their help.

There will be a future-take epilogue, but I hope you've enjoyed the journey. I very much enjoyed writing it for you. Hearts!

On a personal note. My book, One to Tell The Grandkids, should be coming out for the Kindle early next week. If you're interested, feel free to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or follow my blog for updates.

Fun fact I just found out? I've written over three MILLION words of fanfic for this fandom. How crazy is that?